What kinds of land are common in Wythe County?
Mostly forest and farmland. Wythe County's plan counts over 297,000 acres of forested land, over 55,000 of them in the Jefferson National Forest. The 2022 Census of Agriculture put 55,299 acres of farmland in pasture, 48,333 in cropland and 22,398 in woodland. The county lies mainly in the Ridge and Valley province, karst underlies about 30 percent of it, and it has no adopted zoning.
Pasture, cropland and farm woodland in 2022, set beside 297,000 forested acres
Two public counts describe Wythe County's ground, and they measure different things. The 2022 Census of Agriculture counts land in farms and splits it by use. The county's comprehensive plan counts forested land across the whole county, on farms or off them.
| Use | Acres in 2022 |
|---|---|
| Pastureland | 55,299 |
| Cropland | 48,333 |
| Woodland | 22,398 |
| Other | 9,858 |
| All land in farms | 135,888 |
Set against those farm rows, the county plan's forest figure is far larger: over 297,000 acres of forested land, with over 55,000 acres of it in the Jefferson National Forest. The farm woodland row counts woods inside farm operations; the plan's figure counts forest countywide, national forest included. The two describe different things and are best read side by side rather than combined.
One caution about the plan itself. Its farmland paragraph still rests on the 2017 Census of Agriculture, so the shares of pasture, cropland and woodland it prints are an earlier snapshot. The 2022 profile in the table replaces them.
Ridge and Valley country in the middle, national forest along two borders
Wythe County lies primarily within the Ridge and Valley Physiographic Province of Virginia and borders the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province. That sets it apart from Carroll County to the south, which describes most of its own ground as a mountain plateau in the Blue Ridge province.
The plan adds the features that organize the map. The New River runs through the center of the county, and whether New River frontage floods is a question of its own. Portions of the Jefferson National Forest lie along its northern and southern borders. Outside its incorporated towns and census designated places, Wythe is primarily rural agricultural land in terms of developed area.
Read together, those lines give a rough picture: farmed country through the middle, with the river crossing it, and national forest along parts of the northern and southern edges. A rough picture is all it is. Any one tract can break the pattern, so a particular parcel's ground is read on that parcel, not from a county summary.
Mixed pine and hardwood, with over 55,000 acres of it in national forest
The plan describes mixed evergreen pine and deciduous hardwood forests throughout Wythe County.
For anyone looking at wooded ground, the first sort is between the national forest and everything else. Over 55,000 of the county's forested acres are in the Jefferson National Forest. Any private timberland, woodlot or wooded homesite lies outside that federal acreage, in the rest of the county's forest, which by the plan's figures is the larger share.
Farm woodland is its own slice of the forest outside the national forest. The 2022 Census counted 22,398 acres of woodland inside farms, which means a farm sold whole can carry standing timber along with its fields. A wooded tract that adjoins national forest at the county's northern or southern edge has a neighbor that is not a private owner, and what happens on the federal side of that line is not a seller's to promise.
More pasture than cropland in 2022, with prime soils on 6.6 percent of the land base
Among open farmland, grazing ground led in the 2022 count: 55,299 acres of pastureland against 48,333 acres of cropland.
The plan adds a figure about the soil under all of it: prime agricultural soils compose 6.6 percent of the county's land base. That is a statement about the county as a whole, not about any one farm, and a single field can sit well above or below it.
On a given farm, whether a field is tillable land or better kept in pasture comes down to that field's soil, its slope and how it drains. The split matters when a farm is priced and marketed, and why is taken up in tillable versus pasture and why the split matters.
Karst under about 30 percent of the county, and ten mining permits in 2020
Wythe County's plan describes karst as carbonate rock at or near the land surface, and says karst terrain covers about 30 percent of the county.
It names where: much of the county, including Wytheville, Fort Chiswell, Max Meadows, Rural Retreat, Speedwell, Cripple Creek, Ivanhoe and Barren Springs. The plan adds that sinkholes can be a problem for development when the karst formations are close to the surface. A place name on that list does not settle whether karst lies under a particular parcel, and a name missing from it does not rule karst out. That is a question for a geotechnical engineer or the county engineer, and what karst and other difficult ground mean for a house site is covered in soils that are hard to build on here.
The county is also mined. In 2020 the state reported ten active mining permits in Wythe County, for limestone, sand, gravel, shale and quartzite. Ground near an active operation carries that fact with it, the way it carries a road or a river. Whether the rights to what lies beneath a tract passed with its deed is a separate title question, taken up in whether mineral rights convey with the land.
No adopted zoning, and a land use ordinance that is still a draft
Wythe County's plan says the county is one of seven in Southwest Virginia that have not adopted a zoning ordinance. Its Land Use Classification Ordinance exists only as a draft, and the county's page for it says no action has been taken for adoption at this time.
So the forest, the pasture and the quarry ground described above sit in an unzoned county, where uses are not sorted into districts. The towns of Wytheville and Rural Retreat zone their own ground. What the absence of county zoning does and does not free a landowner to do, and what still applies in its place, is covered in zoning versus no zoning.
How the draft would reach a parcel on the Wythe side of the county line, and which county an address near that line is actually in, is covered on the page for Austinville and the two counties its address spans. Wythe County's planning office confirms the draft's current status.
Weighing Wythe County farm or forest acreage?
Send the road or tax map number and the acreage, and Lowell will read how the ground splits between pasture, cropland and woods, and what the county record shows about it. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions this raises
Is Wythe County's farm woodland figure the same as its forest acreage?
No. The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 22,398 acres of woodland inside farms. Wythe County's comprehensive plan counts over 297,000 acres of forested land across the whole county, over 55,000 of them in the Jefferson National Forest. One measures woods on farms and the other measures forest countywide, so the two figures describe different things and should be read side by side, not added together.
What is mined in Wythe County?
In 2020 the state reported ten active mining permits in Wythe County, for limestone, sand, gravel, shale and quartzite, according to the county's comprehensive plan. That is a dated count, so the current permits come from the state agency that issues them. Whether the minerals under a given tract went with the surface in its deed is a separate title question for an attorney.
Does a town on Wythe County's karst list mean a parcel there sits on karst?
Not by itself. Wythe County's plan says karst terrain covers about 30 percent of the county and names Wytheville, Fort Chiswell, Max Meadows, Rural Retreat, Speedwell, Cripple Creek, Ivanhoe and Barren Springs among the places it is found, and it says sinkholes can be a problem for development when the formations are close to the surface. The list describes areas, not parcels. Whether karst lies under a given tract is a question for a geotechnical engineer or the county engineer.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- 2022 Census of Agriculture, County Profile: Wythe County, Virginia (PDF) USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service
- Comprehensive Plan Wythe County, Virginia
- Land Use Classification (draft ordinance) Wythe County, Virginia